Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Books

Nuclear Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu

Booktalk: Growing up in China, Chien-Shiung Wu enjoyed learning about science. As an adult, she earned her PhD in physics and made a discovery that changed the field forever.

Wu came to the United States to study physics. Soon she was a sought-after physics professor. As an expert in the field, she left teaching to work on secret government programs. She even helped disprove a major law of physics. But how did she get there? Find out how Wu’s persistence drove her contributions in the field of physics.

Snippet: After reading hundreds of pages of research, the scientists found that the law of conservation of parity had never been proved through experiments.

Wu did not think the law was likely to be disproved. But without experimental results, they might never know if the law held up. So Wu spent months designing an experiment to test it. She created much of the equipment for the experiment herself.